Letter from Cebu (7) ”Relations between Japan and Cebu – Japanese Association graveyard”

I have explained that a relatively large Japanese community existed in Cebu before the war, and the Japanese Association of Cebu was established in 1915, and that a downtown of Cebu looked like a Little Tokyo. I also have explained that there were strong anti-Japanese feelings among the local people after the war, and, as a result, the memories and footprints of the pre-war Japanese community was wiped out and there is deep division between the pre-war Japanese community and the post-war one in Cebu.
 
Let’s look at how the graves of mainly pre-war Japanese people have been treated.
 
According to “Cebu-toh tsushin (Cebu news)”by the Japanese Association of Cebu, Members of the Japanese Association in Cebu, headed by the then President Mr. Yonamine, tried to find out what happened on the pre-war Japanese cemetery. There was information that the city of Cebu gave the Japanese community about 2,000 square meters of land for their cemetery during the pre-war period. They visited an area near the Mango Avenue, and found out some traces of the cemetery. However, that place was occupied and overwhelmed by barracks of squatters. They found that a grave marker was used as sidings of a barrack, and a tomb stone was used as a pillar for a nipa house.
 
Mr. Masanori Takahashi, a board member of the Japanese Association who joined that visit, was deeply concerned about the terrible situation of the pre-war Japanese cemetery. He voluntarily donated 5 burial plots that he possesses in Liloan to the Japanese Association.
 
The Japanese Association, responding to this donation, constructed a Japanese graveyard in autumn 1999. The Association invited the chief priest of Enjo-temple from Chofu city, Tokyo. He completed a religious procedures for transferring the souls of the Japanese from the pre-war cemetery to the graveyard. The Japanese Association in Cebu takes care of this graveyard, and the members regularly visit it. I also visited the graveyard on July 1^st 2022. The graveyard is located on the slope of the hill. The graveyard was very quiet, and the pleasant wind was blowing through the hill side. All souls of the pre-war Japanese cemetery and souls of the Japanese whose ashes are stored in this graveyard must rest in peace.

(Reference)
Cebu-toh Tsushin 2010 May Vol 116
Cebu-toh Tsushin 2018 May Vol 164